


I'm Not Okay (And Neither Are You)

by Shayne (Thigh_Bone)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Cock & Ball Torture, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:16:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2690870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thigh_Bone/pseuds/Shayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phone calls at 4 am are never a good thing. Four am phone calls to go pick up the guy you have feelings for from a motel in the aftermath of what is clearly kinky sex gone horribly wrong suck beyond imagining. Derek has no idea how to do this and he's terrified of fucking it all up even worse than it already is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Okay (And Neither Are You)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 1: I’d really like to see something with Stiles that explores the darker side of BDSM. Something about how it doesn’t always go as planned, there’s not always enough communication (or consent) and the participants don’t always leave satisfied. Doesn’t have to be sexual, and doesn’t have to have a pairing, but it’s okay if it does. I just basically want the aftermath of a bad scene
> 
> Prompt 2: Some Sterek with CBT please?
> 
> Not sure if this is what either of you was looking for. *shrugs*

It’s four o’clock in the morning and Derek is in a dead sleep when the shrill ringing of his phone wakes him.  After startling awake, he fumbles for the vibrating, caterwauling device blindly and doesn’t even look at the display before stabbing what he hopes is the correct button and pressing it against the side of his face.  “’lo?”  The word ends on a yawn.

“Derek?”

The quiet, totally wrecked voice on the other end has Derek sitting bolt upright instantly.  “Stiles?  Stiles, what’s the matter?”  Derek’s heart is beating double time in his chest and he breaks out in a sweat.  He’s awake now, and his system has just been flooded with too much adrenaline to come up with many ideas about why Stiles could be calling that don’t involve Stiles lying in a pool of his own blood. Derek knows this can’t be good; not when Stiles sounds like that.

A soft, shuddering sigh warbles through the speakers.  “I, I need some help.”  There’s fear in that voice, and a little bit of desperation.

Derek wastes no time in throwing off his blankets and sheets and bending down to scoop the nearest set of clothing off the floor.  He tugs the jeans over his hips while he asks for more information.  “Where are you?  What do you need?”  Derek has never heard that particular tone from Stiles before, despite everything they’ve been through, everything he’s seen the kid endure, and he hopes to God he never does again. He’s not afraid to admit it _terrifies_ him. He’s heard what Stiles sounds like when he’s shaking apart in fear, but this is something else entirely. Stiles sounds lost and defeated, and that’s just not right.

Stiles takes several slow, deep breaths before he answers.  The exhales send waves of static across the line.  “I need you to come pick me up.  And bring me some clothes, some sweat pants.”

Derek freezes in the act of shrugging on a T-shirt.  His fingers tighten around the plastic of his phone until he can hear a little creak.  There is no way that those two sentences can’t sound ominous. There’s no way that those two requests and the soft, broken quality to Stiles’s voice don’t add up to something really bad.  “Stiles, what’s going on?  Are you all right?  Where are you?”  Derek’s voice goes low and tight with panic.

“I’ll be fine once you get here.”  A muffled sob interrupts Stiles’s words.  “I just need you to get here, Derek.”

“Tell me where you are.”  Derek knows his practically growling at Stiles now, and that it’s probably not helping the situation, but he can’t help it.  He’s panicking, he knows he’s panicking, but he feels like it’s pretty justified.  He finishes pulling on his shirt with rough, impatient jerks, focused solely on Stiles’s answer.

“At the motel.”

Derek freezes again.  What in the hell is Stiles doing _there_?  “At the edge of town?”

Stiles makes another one of those horrid wet snuffling noises.  “Yeah.”  On the other end of the line there’s a muffled bump, some indistinct rustling noises and then silence.

Fear squeezes Derek’s heart in an icy fist and he shoves his feet into the nearest pair of shoes he can find.  He doesn’t bother with socks.  “Stiles?  Stiles?  You still there?”

More indistinct rustling, and then Stiles answers.  “‘m here.”

Flooded with relief, Derek doesn’t bother with taking the time to look through his drawers for clothes for Stiles.  He grabs a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt off the floor, then spends a few precious moments he feels like he doesn’t have backtracking to his closet to snag a sweatshirt and bundles them all under his arm.  “Stay with me okay.”

There’s a soft, sleepy sound on the other end of the line and then Stiles breaths directly into the receiver.  “-kay”

Grabbing his keys and wallet off his bedside table, Derek looks around his bedroom like it’ll tell him if he’s forgetting something.  The room holds no answers and he doesn’t have time for this.  He gets moving again, this time for the front door.  “Are you hurt?”

“Depends on your definition of hurt.”  Stiles tries a laugh at the end of that, but it just comes out sounding broken and scraped raw.

Derek’s stomach cramps and aches at the sound of Stiles’s laugh torn to shreds that way.  Stiles should never sound like this.  The sound spurs him on so that he’s practically sprinting to his front door.  He’s desperate to just get to Stiles, to just _see_ him.  “Do you need medical attention?  Should I be calling for backup?” “Backup” is such a loaded word for them and he hopes Stiles knows that covers everything from calling him an ambulance to calling in reinforcements for a fight. He feels totally adrift, afraid of the unknown, and it frustrates him. He wants Stiles to tell him what’s wrong, what he needs.

Stiles hums a little noise that sounds negative.  A few beats later he elaborates.  “No.  I just need you, Derek.”

Finally reaching his car, Derek scrambles behind the driver’s seat and shoves the keys into the ignition.  “I’m coming.”

Stiles hums again.  This time it sounds pleased.  “Okay.  I’ll be waiting.”  The line goes dead with a dual-tonal beep.

Derek drives as fast as he dares and his fingers cramp from his white knuckled grip on the steering wheel by the time he pulls into the parking lot at the motel.

***

Stiles texts Derek his room number when Derek is about halfway there.  Derek is absurdly grateful; he hadn’t thought to ask when he still had Stiles on the phone, and thinking through the process for getting the number just seems like too much for his brain right now.  Derek stalks down the corridor, checking numbers on the door and when he gets to 401 he stops.  The door isn’t latched properly, open a crack, definitely enough for just anyone to walk inside.  That’s Derek’s first clue that whatever he’s going to find inside is not something he’s prepared to deal with.

The acrid stench of urine hits him like a punch, stinging his nostrils and threatening to make him gag. That’s Derek’s second clue.

Derek pushes the door open with shaking hands and walks in the hotel room, closing the door behind himself and making sure to check that it latches properly behind him before moving into the room.  Instinct has completely taken over his brain now, and that dark haze of feeling that’s a little bit protectiveness, a little bit possessiveness, and a whole lot of fight-or-flight response he gets around Stiles sometimes is magnified to the nth degree. His body hums with need and adrenaline and Derek honestly has no idea what the fuck is happening to him right now. He needs so badly to just get to Stiles, but at the same time he doesn’t feel at all prepared to deal with whatever he might find inside this room.  For just a second memory layers over reality and the bright flicker of flame is superimposed over the peeling wallpaper of the motel. The cloying smell of smoke sticks to the back of his throat. Derek shakes his head roughly and moves forward, running from one nightmare and hoping he’s not stepping into another. “Stiles?” he rounds the corner of the little foyer area created by the wall of the bathroom and stops dead in his tracks.

Stiles is huddled atop the bed, curled into the fetal position. There’s blood at the corner of his mouth and under his nose, ugly red patches of skin that are starting to darken to bruises litter his arms, chest and stomach, and there are angry, swollen stripes of raised flesh that look a little like whip marks but much thinner covering his thighs almost completely, leaving only tiny swatches of unmarred skin between them. When he hears Derek’s voice, his eyes blink open slowly and it’s impossible to tell if that’s because of a physiological response to whatever happened in this room or because they’re crusted shut with the semen Derek smells so strongly in the air he can practically taste the bitter tang on his tongue.  It takes Stiles several seconds to properly focus on Derek, and in that time Derek catalogues each and every last mark he can see on Stiles’s body. Derek had been expecting bad when he’d shown up here, but somehow this is so much worse.

Dropping the bundle of clothes, Derek slowly edges forward toward the bed.  Gingerly, he sits on the edge of the mattress.  Looking at Stiles, it’s obvious what happened here.  Derek’s been in enough fucked up places in his head to go looking for things a lot of other people didn’t. He’s not an expert at the BDSM scene or anything, but he’s been around that block a few times, his natural aggression letting him easily fall into the role of dominant for those who wanted that sort of thing. He has no idea what Stiles had gone looking for, and he doesn’t know if Stiles got the scene he wanted, or if it was too much for him, but it’s clear that he didn’t get the aftercare he so desperately needs.  “Talk to me Stiles.” It’s more a plea for direction than a demand; Derek is entirely out of his depth here.

Stiles smiles up at Derek, dazed and goofy.  “You came.” He licks his lip, a habitual movement, and something in the taste of it must remind him what happened, or what he looks like, because his expression crumples and he curls further in on himself.

He looks younger and more vulnerable than Derek has ever seen him. Stomach flipping over painfully, Derek reaches out and touches his hair. His hand comes away wet with what he immediately identifies as piss. The feel of it on his skin and the smell of it thick in his nose suddenly drives home what he’d been avoiding thinking about in favor of his concern for Stiles—that someone had the audacity to take Stiles and mark him, use him like property, and then discard him like trash afterward. The low burn of anger that had been sitting at the base of his skull flares hot and bright in his brain and he can feel his chest rumble with a subvocal growl of pure malice. “Of course I did,” he snaps out. He’s angry at the mystery Top who presumed too much and took liberties he had no right to, but he’s angry at Stiles for doubting him too, and he can’t keep it out of his voice.

Shuffling forward painfully slowly, Stiles manages to get close enough to press his face against Derek’s thigh and rub his cheek against it.  “Wasn’t sure.”  Stiles presses the confession against the denim of Derek’s jeans. “Shouldn’t have even called you. Didn’t want you to see me like this, but I wanted you here.”

It hurts. Those words gut Derek in ways he can’t even count, let alone identify. Stiles is too vulnerable like this, too needy and a dark, shameful part inside him sits up and takes notice of how easily he clings to Derek like this. His mind whispers to him, thoughts like curls of smoke, reminding him of how he’s thought of laying Stiles this low and leaving him completely dependent on Derek before. But this is all wrong. In the way of many fantasies, the reality of it isn’t at all what he wants. He briefly wonders if that’s what happened to Stiles tonight, if the reality didn’t match the fantasy.

Looking at Stiles is making Derek desperate to just _fix it,_ the only problem is that Derek’s just not sure he can.  His eyes catch on the tiny spots of color blooming on Stile’s throat, finger shaped marks that will darken to bruises Derek knows instinctively Stiles will be ashamed of. He feels the urge to fit his own fingers there, to take those marks and make them his own. The need to shift, to be in a form made to rend and tear and conquer crawls beneath his skin and he feels his teeth elongate in his mouth without intending them to. All of the pounding pressure of earlier—to rescue Stiles, to protect him from whatever had made him sound so fearful—were getting mixed up in his brain, and he was already starting to lose whole, rational thoughts to the wolf-brain anyway.

All the misplaced adrenaline and endorphins his body had created when he’d been expecting a fight are tingling in his blood like electricity cycling through a circuit and seeking an outlet. The predator in him wants to dominate—violently, sexually, carnivorously—it doesn’t matter to him how at this point, and having Stiles act so submissively and yet so trustingly fills Derek with that black, nebulous thing Stile’s presence had been evoking more and more, until the feeling condenses down and coalesces into one word that shakes Derek at his core— _mine._ His to hurt, his to protect, his to comfort, his to satisfy, his to take everything from and give everything in return. “Always,” he says aloud, instead. He hopes that Stiles understands it means that Derek will always be there when he needs him, but he doesn’t know that he will; it doesn’t matter anyway. As much as Derek wants, he knows he can’t have. Especially not like this.

Stiles chokes out a strangled sob and pushes his face into Derek’s thigh.

Carefully, Derek cups Stiles’s cheek and lifts his head so that he can see Stiles’s face.  Stiles feels fragile in his hands and he feels big and awkward and clumsy in a way he hasn’t since puberty. Stiles is trusting him with this, and Derek knows without having to be told how huge that is. Stiles doesn’t let people in; the careful habit of a boy who lost someone too young and is afraid that if he shows anything real, anything other than what he chooses to present, appears as anything other than perfect, that the people who are left in his life might leave him. Stiles has built an entire identity on being needed instead of needy. That Derek gets to see it makes him feel like he could break Stiles with nothing but a careless word or gesture. It makes him break out in a sweat. Derek’s not exactly good at meeting emotional needs—his own or others’.

“Are you still under?  Or are you mostly back with me?”  He needs to know if it’s just aftercare Stiles needs or if he has to be pulled back up too. He has to get this right, and it’s become something of a habit to look to Stiles for direction. Although, he doesn’t even know how much experience Stiles has with this, so he may not even be able to help Derek here.

Stiles sniffles.  “I’m mostly back up.”

Derek smiles and rubs his thumb over Stiles’s cheekbone.  That certainly makes Derek’s life easier; he wouldn’t feel comfortable trying to work Stiles back to the surface without knowing what had taken him down in the first place.  Aftercare alone was going to be hard enough under these circumstances, and Derek had never been very good at aftercare anyway.  “Good. Do you know what you want right now?  A shower, or do you want me to take you home?”

Stiles nods faintly at Derek’s last suggestion.  “Home.”

Derek lets out a harsh puff of breath in relief.  Thank god Stiles was up enough to tell Derek what he needed; Derek didn’t think he could handle fumbling through different options till he found the right one, not when he was so tight with worry and directionless aggression.  “All right then, let’s get out of here.  Can you stand?”

Stiles’s face crumples and he looks up at Derek desperately.  It’s clear he’s not capable of actually deciding an answer to that. “I—” He bites his already swollen lip. “Please?”

Well shit, Stiles’s not up as much as he claims he is.  Derek has absolutely no idea what to do with this. Stiles has gone from feeling as fragile as spun glass in his hands to something more like cotton candy—something the heat of his palm would melt to nothing no matter how carefully he cradled it—and he is just not the right person for this job. He can’t imagine how he’s going to figure out what Stiles needs, let alone manage to give it to him. He takes a deep breath. “All right, I’m gonna help you.  Is that okay?”

A cautious look of hope blooms across Stiles’s face and he blinks guilelessly up at Derek. “Yeah?”

Feeling unaccountably nervous, Derek nodded. “Yeah.”

Flashing Derek a grateful smile, Stiles moves then, uncurling and straightening his legs out.

Derek doesn’t mean to look, but the movement catches his eye and his attention is immediately drawn to Stiles’s groin. And all of the blood drains out of his face.

Stiles gives a helpless little moan of pain and rolls a little, not all the way on his back, but enough to arch it some, like he was presenting his cock to Derek. His bound, swollen, leaking, purple cock.

Derek has never seen an erection that looked that painful, didn’t know erections _could_ look that painful. Derek’s not sure exactly what it is that’s wrapped around the base of Stiles’s cock and then looped again around his balls, but it looks like a rubber band. He can see little patches of pubic hair that have gotten caught and been ripped out and there’s one place on the left side of Stiles’s poor cock where it looks like the binding has actually broken skin.

Stiles makes another tiny, pained noise.

Derek’s attention snaps up to Stiles’s face. Now that he knows that Stiles has been laying there like that the entire time, Derek can read the subtle hints of pain and desperation in his expression and it makes him sick. He’s not sure exactly what he should do, what someone who was just being a good friend and didn’t have this ball of possessive energy rising up in their chest and choking them would do. But he can think of a good place to start. His gaze flickers back down to Stiles’s groin briefly and then he meets Stiles’s eyes. “You’ve got to get that off you.”

Stiles’s eyes widen a little in what might be fear but he licks his lips and nods urgently. He bucks his hips in an aborted movement that looks like he might be trying to put himself closer to Derek. He doesn’t reach down for the rubber band at all.

Derek wonders just how far down Stiles really is that he didn’t attempt to take this binding off before now. He wonders why he still isn’t. He looks at Stiles’s wide eyes and his heaving chest and tries not to think about his painfully engorged dick. Then it hits him like a ton of bricks.

Stiles is waiting for _him_ to take the binding off.

Derek swears under his breath, low and vehement. This is not at all what he signed up for when he rushed out of his house at the urgent sound of Stiles on the other end.

Stiles flinches at the rough sound of Derek’s voice.

Feeling guilty, Derek reaches out to touch Stiles’s shoulder, to comfort him, but stops halfway there. He doesn’t know how to _do this._ And he’s already fucking it up so badly. “Hey, it’s okay.” It’s really, _really_ not okay, but Derek doesn’t have any other words than that. He wishes abruptly that their positions were reversed; he bets Stiles would know what to do with a wounded, needy Derek. He’s kind of proven that on a couple of occasions.

Stiles wiggles his hips, like he’s trying to remind Derek of his poor, tortured cock, though Derek doesn’t think he needs a reminder of anything _less._ “Please,” Stiles whispers again.

It breaks Derek’s heart a little that this is the only word Stiles seems to know now, that this boy who is so full of words and thoughts that they spill out of him unchecked on a constant basis has been stripped to just one thought. It guts him that Stiles keeps begging for something Derek doesn’t know how to give. He moves his hand, lets it hover in the air about six inches from Stiles’s waist, hoping his intent is clear. “I’m going to take that off now.” He waits for almost a full minute, counting the rapid beats of Stiles’s heart, giving Stiles plenty of time to object. He’s never asked for permission to touch Stiles before, always been a little proprietary with him, but it feels really wrong in this context. And he has no idea how much has been taken from Stiles without his consent tonight; he won’t add another instance.

When Stiles makes no objection, Derek looks away from his face, down to the task at hand. He doesn’t want to hurt Stiles any more than he’s already been hurt, even to remove the thing, but it’s got to come off. Tentatively, he slides a finger between the strip of rubber and Stiles’s skin.

Stiles hisses, but makes no protest and gives no further reaction.

Derek swallows roughly and then slips a finger from the opposite hand underneath as well. As quickly as he dares, he snaps the rubber and holds the ends tightly to keep the elastic from snapping back against Stiles, then carefully pulls the broken binding away from Stile’s skin. Derek worries about the way it sort of catches at Stiles’s pubic hair in the process, but Stiles doesn’t seem too bothered.

Stiles lets out a moan that’s half pain, half something else and a dribble of fluid spits out the tip of his cock as soon as the organ is freed. He writhes restlessly on the bed but his hands fist in the dirty bed sheet beneath him instead of going to his groin. He stares up at Derek helplessly and pants through a slick, slightly parted mouth.

The scent of Stiles’s arousal makes Derek half-crazy with lust for a second before he shakes his head and comes back to himself. The beast within him senses a receptive partner for mating and it’s all he can do to fight that instinct down and not simply _take._

Stiles is panting heavily now, and he thrusts his hips in a jerky little circle and whispers, “please,” again.

Derek remembers promising to help Stiles out just moments ago, and he curses his lack of foresight. He hadn’t meant _this,_ but Stiles seems to be asking for it. He seems to be able to register only the fact that he hurt and that Derek had promised to fix it, and not the fact that what he was asking might get weird the next morning. Derek wants to touch Stiles, god did he want to. He wants to hold him, and scent him, and breathe him in, and mark him, and fuck him, and own him and live out every terrible urge the darkest part of his heart concocted—but not like this. Not when someone else had broken Stiles and Derek is just clumsily trying to put the pieces back together. Not when Stiles is looking at Derek like he has all the answers and Derek knows the ugly truth—that he didn’t have any damned clue what he was doing. Not when this wouldn’t _mean anything_ tomorrow.

Stiles seems to sense Derek’s hesitation, and his face crumples. He shrinks back a little, curling in on himself. “Okay,” he whispers, almost more breath than sound.

The growl is involuntary; Derek doesn’t intend to do it. It’s just a reaction to seeing Stiles draw away from him.

Stiles freezes at the sound and tears gather in the corners of his eyes. “Derek?” he questions hesitantly.

Derek takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says to steady himself. He looks down at Stiles’s dick, still painfully swollen and still leaking, and repeats “okay.” He doesn’t really feel any calmer, but it’s the effort that counts, right? He brings his gaze back up to meet Stiles’s. “You have to tell me that this is okay, Stiles.” He prays he won’t have to explain it, that Stiles will understand what he means. He isn’t sure how much Stiles’s consent will count once Stiles comes back up, and he doesn’t know if Stiles will regret letting Derek touch him when this is all said and done, but he still needs to have some form of agreement to go forward.

Stiles looks directly at Derek and nods slightly, whatever headspace he’s in is clearly making him uncomfortable with having to give permission.

It’s enough for Derek, and he takes pity on Stiles, not making him give anything else than that. He lays a careful hand on Stiles’s cock, not stroking, just covering it—testing—unsure of how sensitive he is.

Stiles whines at the contact, every muscle in his body going tight and straining with the effort of holding himself still.

Derek wraps his fingers around Stiles’s length in a grip firm enough to provide friction, but loose enough not to hurt. “It’s okay, you can move. Take what you need from me.” He can hear how low his own voice has gotten, the weight of command he’s put into the words, and he hates himself for it. Stiles is too far gone to tell him no, too desperate to realize how Derek’s manipulating him now, and more orders to follow are probably the last things Stiles needs; but Derek can’t help it. Stiles is laid out beneath him, needy and beautiful and for this short moment in time, _Derek’s._ He’s not strong enough to resist taking what he can while he’s got the opportunity.

Stiles whimpers and shifts his hips restlessly, fucking his cock through the circle of Derek’s fist. It doesn’t take much, as close to the edge as he must have been, just a few pumps and then he’s spilling into Derek’s hand, hot and messy and potently male.

Even knowing it was coming, Stiles’s release catches Derek by surprise. The warm splash of it shocks him and when his own hard cock twitches in sympathy, he realizes that he has no idea how long he’s been hard—hadn’t even been aware of it until now. He pulls his hand away from Stiles’s cock and stares at the mess on his skin.

Stiles lets out the most pornographic moan when he sees his release staining Derek’s hand and surges forward, his tongue out to lick the spunk from Derek’s hand. He licks and sucks, pulling Derek’s skin into his mouth as he goes, seeming intent on cleaning all of himself from Derek.

Derek lets out a little groan, the only reaction he’ll allow himself to Stiles’s wicked tongue on his body, licking _his own fucking seed_ away, even as his cock grows impossibly harder. When Stiles finally releases him, he pulls his hand back and stands up, needing distance between them.

Stiles looks up at Derek through his eyelashes and then looks down at the bulge in Derek’s jeans. He reaches for it with a shaky hand.

“No!” Derek barks out, desperate for some semblance of order in this teeming mass of chaos.

Stiles flinches hard, like he’s taken a physical blow.

Derek feels like an ass for being so insensitive, but he thinks he’s got an excuse. How else is he supposed to react with a naked Stiles reaching for his cock fresh off sucking his own cum from Derek’s fingers?

Stiles looks up at him and his lower lip trembles.

“Fuck.” Derek rakes a hand through his hair, a hand that smells far too much like Stiles for his sanity. “I’m not mad.” He wants to get that out of the way. He knows that much from his few forays into the BDSM clubs; subs so far under that they can’t see the light of day are _wrecked_ by the idea that you’re displeased or angry with them. Derek wants to head that spiral of fear and self-doubt off at the pass.

Stiles relaxes minutely, but he still looks terribly unsure. “Then I wasn’t good? You don’t want me?”

Oh hell, that is definitely _not_ the problem. How is this Derek’s life? “You were good, really good.”

Stiles sighs and closes his eyes, looking blissed-out at the praise. He blinks his eyes open. “Then why won’t you…” he trails off and his eyes flicker down to Derek’s crotch.

Derek sighs. “We’ve got to get you home.”

Stiles looks confused, but he nods. He’s back to looking mostly clingy but not irrevocably broken.

Sighing again, Derek carefully wraps his arm around Stiles’s waist and tugs him to the edge of the bed.  He has no idea what the best way to get Stiles upright without irritating his injuries is, not without examining the full extent of them; but there isn’t time for that now.  After a few minutes of thought, he gives up and just puts his other hand beneath Stiles’s armpit and simply lifts him out of the bed and to his feet.

Stiles staggers, but manages to get his feet under him.  He slumps forward and rests his head on Derek’s shoulder, letting Derek support all of his weight and breathes wet little keening noises into the skin of Derek’s throat.

Instinct takes over, and Derek hums softly and rubs his hands up and down the unmarked skin along Stiles’s ribs, firm enough not to tickle, but soft enough to soothe.  He waits, content to keep humming and petting until Stiles starts holding some of his own weight.  This he knows, the comfort of another body close, and this is much less terrifying than dealing with any of the other stuff going on here. After several quiet minutes, he puts a finger under Stiles’s chin and tips his head up.  “Feel up to trying to stand by yourself a minute?”

Stiles bites his lip but he takes a little shuffling step backward in answer.

Derek runs his hands down Stiles’s arms and braces Stiles with hands under his elbows.  “Good, that’s good.”

Stiles shuts his eyes and shivers at the praise.  His spine straightens a little and he seems to be a little steadier on his feet.

Derek squeezes Stiles’s elbows in a rhythmic little pattern for several heartbeats, then stops.  “You’re doing really good Stiles.  I’m going to let go and get the clothes I brought. I just need you to stand up by yourself for just a minute.  Do you think you can do that?”  He knows asking Stiles to do something and continuing to praise him for it might not help Stiles start coming up, but it is probably going to help get Stiles dressed faster, so Derek chooses the lesser of two evils.

Stiles nods slowly, like he’s thinking about it as he’s agreeing.

Derek gives Stiles’s arms one last squeeze before withdrawing slowly, taking a few small steps back.  He hopes Stiles’s okay enough on his own for long enough to get the clothes he brought.  Stiles’s been very clingy, and while Derek doesn’t really mind, he _desperately_ wants to get Stiles out of this place.

Stiles whines low in his throat, but he doesn’t reach out for Derek, and he doesn’t fall over either.

Derek hurries to the pile of clothing he’d dropped and picks it up.  He talks the entire time, needing to maintain some sort of connection with Stiles and knowing Stiles needs it too.  “That’s right.  Just like that Stiles.  I knew you could do it.  You’re doing so good.” While it feels weird to say these things, the words come naturally to him, and the more he talks, the less awkward it feels.

Breathing out slowly through his nose, Stiles shuts his eyes again.  “Derek.”

Derek makes it back to Stiles and wraps him up in a cautious hug, careful of the ugly marks he’d been too afraid to look at very closely, and whispers into his hair.  “That was so good. You’re being so perfect for me.”

Sinking into the embrace, Stiles fists both hands in the material of Derek’s T-shirt and sucks in a wet, shuddering breath.

Derek takes a step back and soothes Stiles with a shushing noise.  “Gotta get you dressed now.  Okay?”

Nodding, Stiles does his best to support his own weight. He mostly does it without wavering.

It takes some doing, a lot of careful maneuvering by Derek, but he eventually manages to get Stiles into the shorts, T-shirt and sweatshirt. The wounds littering his body were worse than they looked at first glance and Derek finds himself being overly careful of them.

Stiles pulls the sleeves of the sweatshirt down over his hands and curls his fists around the ends.  He wraps both arms around himself and inhales deeply. The clothes seem to bring him back to reality a little, and his eyes dart around the room, never settling anywhere and avoiding Derek completely.

Afraid that Stiles is starting to feel ashamed, starting to draw away in a need to protect himself, Derek cups both hands over Stiles’s face and tilts Stiles’s head up.  “I’ve got you Stiles.  You’re safe now.  Whatever you need, okay?”  It’s more than just the reassuring words Stiles needs to hear right now; it everything swelling in Derek’s heart struggling to get free. He knows it’s a promise he’ll keep to his dying breath even if Stiles doesn’t.

Stiles blinks rapidly, eyelashes wet, and nods carefully.  “Just want to go home.”

Derek nods and can’t resist stroking his thumbs over Stiles’s cheekbones, affection and protectiveness threatening to overwhelm him.  “Then let’s get you out of here.”

***

Actually getting Stiles into Derek’s car is another exercise in careful movements and creative maneuvering, since Stiles refuses to let go of Derek through the entire process.  It’s hard to avoid aggravating Stiles’s injuries especially when Stiles seems largely unconcerned with them, but Derek gets it done.  Once inside, Stiles still doesn’t let go though; Derek actually has to climb over Stiles to get into the driver’s seat rather than go around. Derek finds he doesn’t actually mind all that much. He’d been afraid that this was going to end as soon as they crossed the threshold of the motel room, that Stiles would push him away. That Stiles only seems to want him closer makes his chest swell with pride.

The seats won’t let Stiles actually curl up against Derek’s side, but Stiles tries anyway, leaning over to press his face into the curve of Derek’s neck and wrapping his arms around Derek’s waist.

Derek has to drive slowly to accommodate Stiles’s snuggling, even though all he wants to do is speed back to Stiles’s place, get him back somewhere safe and familiar where he can properly take care of him.  His heart has stopped trying to beat out of his chest with panic, and he’s not sweating anymore, but his hands are still shaking. Everything is spinning so far out of control and the bitch of it is that all at once, everything’s changed and yet nothing’s really changed at all. He knows what Stiles feels like coming in his hand, and yet Stiles still doesn’t belong to him.

Derek is sitting at a traffic light, waiting to make a turn in the direction of Stiles’s house when Stiles pulls back.  He looks up at Derek with such a hesitant, hopeful expression it’s almost painful.  “Can – Can we go back to yours?  Pl- please, Derek?”

Stiles looks like he’s prepared to take an actual physical blow and Derek feels anger overwhelm him again. In the haze of his complicated feelings for Stiles coming to a head, he’d lost sight of the fact that someone had done this to Stiles. Someone had broken him, hurt him, and made him afraid of asking for anything he wanted. Derek was going to kill him. “I told you whatever you needed.”  Such a simple request, when Derek would be willing to do far, far more for Stiles.

Stiles shudders and leans away from Derek, pressing himself against the door and looking out the window.  He tightens his grip around Derek’s fingers.

The rest of the ride to Derek’s place is spent in mostly comfortable silence.

***

Stiles doesn’t want to take Derek’s clothes off, not to shower, and not even to let Derek check the welts on his back and thighs.  “They’re fine, Derek.  The skin wasn’t broken on any of them, they’ll keep until morning; I’ll let you check then.”

Reluctant to make Stiles do anything he doesn’t want to, not when he doesn’t know what happened in that hotel room and Stiles’s still looking so vulnerable, Derek just sighs and nods, even though he can _smell_ blood. He doesn’t think Stiles is lying to him intentionally, it’s just that he doesn’t think Stiles knows how bad he’s actually hurt. He ruthlessly ignores the part of himself whispering that he’s giving in so easily because he likes seeing Stiles in his clothes. “All right.  Do you want me to stay with you or do you want to sleep alone?”

Crawling under the covers, Stiles frowns up at Derek, confused.  “Stay.”  Burrowing under the covers, Stiles shuts his eyes and inhales deeply.

Derek stands by the bed awkwardly. Belatedly he realizes what “staying” means. He thinks crawling into bed with Stiles right now is too great a test of his control. He doesn’t know how to do this.

Stiles cracks one eye open and shoots Derek a petulant look when he realizes Derek hasn’t moved. “Don’t make this weird, okay?”

Derek huffs out a humorless laugh. “It’s already weird.” Because this isn’t a thing they do, get close like this. Sure, there’s been times where they’ve been bodily close, thousands of vertical surfaces he’s pushed Stiles against flare in his memory, and he can taste chlorine as the memory of a swimming pool skitters through his mind’s eye, and then the rest of them are moving too fast for him to even catch, but none of them have been like this—deliberate, intentional, and purely for comfort and enjoyment. This might change things more than his hand on Stiles’s cock will.

Stiles sighs in irritation and grabs the edge of the blanket, holding it up in invitation to Derek. “Just get the fuck in here.”

And how the fuck is Derek supposed to say no to that? He’ll deal with the fallout in the morning. Stripping off his T-shirt and kicking off his shoes, he crawls in bed with Stiles. He can feel the heat of Stiles’s body all along his side and he wants to draw him close breath in the scent of Stiles covered in Derek’s scent clinging to stiles from the sheets and the borrowed clothes. There’s still the faint scent of sex and urine underneath it all. Stiles had let Derek wipe his face off and he’d stuck his head under the tap in the kitchen to rinse his hair, but that had been all the cleaning he’d been willing to submit to. Derek finds he doesn’t mind as much as he thought he would.

Trying not to pressure Stiles or make him feel crowded, Derek lies on his side and leaves space between Stiles’s body and his own. He clenches his hands into fists so he doesn’t reach out and touch.

Stiles whines his displeasure at this and tugs imperiously at Derek, moving him how he likes, until Stiles is lying mostly atop Derek, blanketing his body.

Derek laughs at Stiles and presses his hand to the small of Stiles’s back.  Derek had been worried that it was going to take something Derek didn’t know how to give to get Stiles back up out of the brutal headspace he’d been put down into, but Stiles had managed to pull himself up without help from Derek in the quiet of the ride home.  While he’s still looking a little raw and fragile, he isn’t that broken desperate thing he’d been in that other bed.  Derek is stupidly grateful to have this Stiles back, even if it is weird with the proprietary way he’s treating Derek’s body; it’s a little of a role reversal. He doesn’t hate it though, if he’s honest.

Grunting unhappily, Stiles wiggles around until he’s comfortable.  Pressing his nose to the hinge of Derek’s jaw, he inhales deeply again.  Settling, Stiles sighs deeply.  After a few seconds of silence and stillness, Stiles asks, “aren’t you going to ask what happened?”

Derek echoes Stiles’s deep sigh and rubs his hand up and down Stiles’s spine, lightly trailing his fingertips over the raised skin crisscrossing Stiles’s skin.  “I know what happened; I don’t need to ask.  If you want to tell me, if it will help you to talk about it, then I’ll listen.  I’ll listen to whatever you want to tell me, but I don’t need to hear it.  You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Nuzzling in closer to Derek, Stiles pushes one of his thighs between Derek’s to tangle them together even further.  “’S what I love about you Derek.  I call you in the middle of the night to come pick me up, you show and I’m a wreck, and you just take care of everything and you don’t even ask any questions.”

Derek frowns.  “Don’t really have the right to ask though, do I?”  He hadn’t meant to go there. Stiles might be looking and sounding more like himself now, but Derek could see behind the mask now, knew where he was still cracked and a little raw. He hadn’t meant to bring it up and give Stiles something _else_ to worry about after tonight, but hell, how much control was he going to be expected to maintain? He couldn’t prevent this little slip.

Stiles rubs his cheek against Derek’s chest.  “No, I guess not.”

Derek shuts his eyes and shifts into a more comfortable position, finally allowing exhaustion to creep in on the edges of his mind and make his limbs heavy.  “You wouldn’t tell me even if I asked. You never let anyone else carry the burden for you.”

Stiles shifts, his chin digging into Derek’s collarbone. “I know.”

Derek lifts his hand and cards his fingers through Stiles’s hair. They still smell like jizz and his hair still smells like piss and if Derek wasn’t so tired his brain could probably wrap around the metaphor it was trying to generate about them both still being a little dirty and it being okay. “Go to sleep.” He doesn’t know if he’s talking to Stiles or himself.

Stiles yawns loudly. “Yeah, okay,” he mumbles, words muffled by Derek’s chest.

* * * *

The smell of coffee wakes Derek. He rubs a hand across his eyes and sits up. To find Stiles sitting at the end of the bed with a cup of coffee. Awkwardness crawls over Derek’s brain and he has no idea what to say. There’s a whole lot that happened last night in a very short amount of time and he’s honestly not sure exactly how they’re supposed to come back from that.

Stiles looks down at his cup of coffee and grimaces slightly. He holds the cup out to Derek. “Take it.”

Derek eyes the cup warily. “What did you do to it?”

Stiles laughs without humor. “Nothing.” He looks down at his hands and starts picking at a hangnail with his thumb. He sighs deeply. “I, I have this thing okay?” He looks up at Derek with fire in his eyes, like he’s daring Derek to give him shit about that.

Derek is very, very confused. “Okay,” he answers. He figures that’s neutral enough. His brain keeps getting hung up on the fact that Stiles is still wearing his clothes. He’s clearly showered, Derek can smell the soap, but he’d put the borrowed clothes back on instead of grabbing something clean. Derek thinks that might mean something, but he’s fucked if he knows what.

Stiles shoves the finger with the hangnail in his mouth and worries at the broken skin with his teeth. He speaks around the intrusion in his mouth easily. “After a uh, a scene, the next morning, sometimes I’m still a little…”

Absently, Derek reaches out and takes the cup of coffee. “Under?”

Stiles shakes his head quickly. “Not under, just—raw, I guess?” He watches Derek nervously, like he’s afraid Derek might reject him for this, that after everything last night that this confession would be the final straw.

Derek takes a sip of coffee; it’s exactly how he likes it. “It’s good.” Somehow he understands that it’s really important that he say that out loud, really important that Stiles knows.

Stiles relaxes fractionally. He takes his hand out of his mouth and his lower lip is shiny with spit.

Understanding floods Derek’s consciousness. He sets the cup of coffee on his nightstand. “You’re trying to ward off sub-drop.”

Stiles flinches. “Maybe. That’s probably it, but it started out mostly subconsciously and now I don’t know how to stop it.”

Derek nods. “It ever work?”

Stiles snorts. “What do you think?”

Derek picks the coffee up again. “Coffee really is good.” He looks at Stiles with what he hopes is a look that says, “you can say no if you want to.” He really hopes he’s getting this right. “It would go great with some eggs.” The thing is, he knows he’s not good with emotions or any sort of personal connections, but he thinks he gets this. He thinks he can do this.

Stiles lets out a shuddering breath and sags, like a puppet with its strings cut. He slides off the bed without saying anything. He heads toward the door, and stops in the doorway. He doesn’t turn around when he says, “You did, you know.”

Derek feels all the air leave his lungs like he’s been punched. “Did what?” He desperately wants Stiles to be saying what he thinks he is.

Stiles reaches out and grips the doorframe. “Have the right to ask. Last night. I would have told you.”

Derek gets the feeling Stiles is saying so much more than what the words actually add up to. He can’t hear all the unspoken things yet, but he thinks given the time he could learn how. “Did I miss my chance?”

Stiles is shaking where he’s standing and his grip tightens around the molding, knuckles going white. “No.”

“Good.” Derek settles into the mattress and takes another sip of coffee, feeling settled even though things between them were _far_ from settled. “When you get back, you can tell me.”

A visible shiver runs up Stiles’s spine. “Okay.” He walks out of the room.

“Okay,” Derek whispers with a smile. Maybe this is something he can figure out how to give.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr: http://twboned.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> I take requests.


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